Will FL DMV total my Jeep ?
12-04-2017, 10:13 AM
#46
Old fart with a wrench
We may be missing the point here. He's not dealing with HIS insurance company, but with the other guy's. He can turn that around and submit it to HIS company and have THEM battle it out.
12-04-2017, 10:23 AM
#47
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Hopefully he can come back to this in the future and let us know how it all turned out in the end.
12-04-2017, 12:11 PM
#48
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Year: 2000
Model: Cherokee(XJ)
Engine: Golen 4.6L
Not "somehow." The process is pretty simple. They own it because you agree to sell it to them as part of the settlement. They pay you for the busted up car, and you sign it over to them in exchange. There's not a big mystery here.
For the love of god how many times do I have to say this? Those are not the only two options. You have another completely valid option, which is to just not accept the settlement. Then you never sell them your car, they never own it and it never has a salvage title. The only reason you end up with a salvage title is because you agree to the deal.
You got your ****tin' pants on? In fact I do work in the insurance industry, as an auditor. I'm in a completely different line (title insurance), but my job is to catch insurers who cheat, steal or otherwise do things they're not supposed to. I'm the guy who protects you, the consumer, from being overcharged for a policy or having your money stolen or misused.
That means I'm required to have a very good understanding of risk mitigation, what insurance is and how it works, at least generally. To that end I have a degree in finance and hold a CPA license. I suspect I understand insurance better than 99.9% of the people on this board.
That's why I'm confident I actually know what I'm talking about.
I'm not justifying anything. I'm trying to educate, since a lot of your anger is completely misguided and based on a gross misunderstanding of what insurance is and how it actually works. It's like if you thought the Earth was flat, I tell you it's round, and you fire back that I'm trying to justify the roundness of the Earth by correcting you. The Earth being round is not evil. It just is. The way insurance works is not evil. It just is. I can't help it if you refuse to accept reality.
You got your ****tin' pants on? In fact I do work in the insurance industry, as an auditor. I'm in a completely different line (title insurance), but my job is to catch insurers who cheat, steal or otherwise do things they're not supposed to. I'm the guy who protects you, the consumer, from being overcharged for a policy or having your money stolen or misused.
That means I'm required to have a very good understanding of risk mitigation, what insurance is and how it works, at least generally. To that end I have a degree in finance and hold a CPA license. I suspect I understand insurance better than 99.9% of the people on this board.
That's why I'm confident I actually know what I'm talking about.
I'm not justifying anything. I'm trying to educate, since a lot of your anger is completely misguided and based on a gross misunderstanding of what insurance is and how it actually works. It's like if you thought the Earth was flat, I tell you it's round, and you fire back that I'm trying to justify the roundness of the Earth by correcting you. The Earth being round is not evil. It just is. The way insurance works is not evil. It just is. I can't help it if you refuse to accept reality.
12-04-2017, 12:23 PM
#49
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YMMV, but based on my own experience, I wouldn't do it that way anyway. I did have comprehensive insurance and submitted a claim once, and I found myself pretty much at the mercy of my insurer. There were expenses my insurer refused to pay because my contract didn't include them. They told me that if I wanted to get reimbursed for them, I'd need to file a separate claim with the other driver's insurance company anyway. They had initially sold me on it as being "easier" than going after the other insurer, but in the end it made it more complicated.
In another situation I submitted a claim to the other driver's insurance, ignoring mine. It took longer, but in the end I got everything I wanted just by being patient and refusing to settle until I felt comfortable with the payout. If I ever have to do it again, I'm going to do it this way.
Furthermore, if the settlement doesn't go your way and you have to sue, you're a lot better off suing the other guy's insurance company rather than your own.
Last edited by extrashaky; 12-04-2017 at 12:26 PM.
12-04-2017, 12:46 PM
#50
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Year: 97
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I'm not justifying anything. I'm trying to educate, since a lot of your anger is completely misguided and based on a gross misunderstanding of what insurance is and how it actually works. It's like if you thought the Earth was flat, I tell you it's round, and you fire back that I'm trying to justify the roundness of the Earth by correcting you. The Earth being round is not evil. It just is. The way insurance works is not evil. It just is. I can't help it if you refuse to accept reality.
12-04-2017, 02:00 PM
#51
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2014
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Year: 2000
Model: Cherokee(XJ)
Engine: Golen 4.6L
I skipped this one earlier, because it's uncomfortable and not easy to explain, and I wanted to consider how to respond. All I ask is that you just keep an open mind for a moment before you start attacking the explanation.
It's not fair. Period.
It's also not fair that you get hit in the first place. It's not fair that there are stupid drivers on the road. It's not fair that there are smart drivers who have a lapse in judgment. It's not fair that there are people who drive around without liability coverage.
Let's agree that life isn't fair and set that aside for a moment. Then we can look at why they do something that isn't fair and are still able to sleep at night.
Insurance is based mostly on risk. You have a risk that you will be in an accident. You buy insurance to transfer the financial side of that risk to someone else. The insurance company accepts your risk, so that you can drive around without being terrified that you'll go bankrupt, lose your house and end up on the street if anything happens.
The insurance company has to decide how much to charge you to accept your risk. If you're a really bad driver, you are giving them more risk, so they need to charge you more to keep from losing money on you. Actually, they will lose money on you if they have to pay a claim, so they charge you and people they think are like you more so that they don't lose money when they average you all out. Remember, they're in this to make money, and if there were no money to be made, nobody would be willing to sell insurance.
On the flip side, if you're a good driver, they want to charge you less. If they charge you as much as the bad driver, you'll get mad. You'll go over to a competitor who is charging a lower rate. So they want to charge you just enough to make sure they make money on you without running you off.
The problem is determining who is a bad driver and who is a good driver. If they ask, 100% of their customers would say they're good drivers. So they have to look for indicators that may not apply directly to you, but do apply to people they identify as being like you.
A big indicator is location. If you live in an area where there are a lot of accidents, chances are higher that you'll be in an accident. So they charge you more, even though you may be the best driver there.
Another is age. Since young people are more likely to get into an accident, just being young is considered riskier. Another is the type of car you drive. Another is the type of driving you do. A guy who travels 40K miles per year is more likely to get into an accident than a guy who travels 10K miles per year. Another is driving history. If you get tickets, that's an indication that you participate in riskier behavior than someone who doesn't. So your rates go up.
But there are also discounts. People who take defensive driving courses are less likely to get into accidents, so they are less risky. Someone who has no tickets may get a "safe driving" discount.
A really screwy one is the multi-car discount. Married people are less likely to get into accidents than single people. But married people are also more likely to have multiple vehicles, so they consider people with multiple vehicles insured with them to be less risky. They're penalizing single people for being more risky, but it's presented as a discount for customer loyalty instead. The discount is something people can understand a lot easier than a risk penalty.
So you have discounts, and you have rate increases, but they're all basically just a way to put a price on your risk (or the risk of people like you).
Now for the unfair part. None of those risk factors guarantee that YOU will be the one to cause an accident. They can't see the future. If they could, they just wouldn't insure the people they knew were going to be at fault. Since they can't see the future, they have to rely on statistics to determine how risky someone like you would be. Then they charge you accordingly.
So back to your question: Why would rates go up after an accident even if it wasn't your fault?
To answer that, let's back up for a minute and consider an extreme case. What if I told you I got into ten accidents this year, but I wasn't at fault in any of them. What if I even had the police reports to prove it was always the other guy's fault. Would you really believe that I didn't contribute at all to those accidents?
If someone told me he had been in two or three accidents, I'd think he just lived in Louisiana or a similar place with a ****load of bad drivers. But if he told me he had been in ten accidents, I would start to suspect that he was only technically not at fault, but he was driving in a risky way that was contributing to accidents anyway. I would probably be a little wary of riding with him.
In other words, I would consider him riskier than the guy who hadn't had any accidents.
This goes back to the unfair part about statistics. Someone who has had an accident is more likely to be in another accident, even if it wasn't his fault. Maybe you won't be in another accident, but people like you are statistically more likely to have another crash. The insurance company doesn't have to know why that correlation is there. All they need to know is that the correlation exists. Then they charge you more for your policy, to make sure that they don't lose money across the average of all the people like you.
So while it may not be fair, consider the alternative. Let's say you told the insurance companies they have to charge everyone the same amount and can't discriminate based on risk. There wouldn't be a single unmarried person under the age of 30 in this country who would be able to get insurance. Companies would consider it unprofitable and would leave the business altogether. You would end up with one or two huge underwriters who would make their money by cutting customer service and making it almost impossible to get paid for a claim. But at least if everyone is treated like crap equally, it would be fair.
Here's one... Justify this one... Why should a victim also be punished with increased rates for many years in a row because someone else hit them and it was completely not their fault at all? And these rates follow you where ever you go no matter who you get as a carrier? At what point is it fair to also punish the innocent for the actions of the guilty?
It's also not fair that you get hit in the first place. It's not fair that there are stupid drivers on the road. It's not fair that there are smart drivers who have a lapse in judgment. It's not fair that there are people who drive around without liability coverage.
Let's agree that life isn't fair and set that aside for a moment. Then we can look at why they do something that isn't fair and are still able to sleep at night.
Insurance is based mostly on risk. You have a risk that you will be in an accident. You buy insurance to transfer the financial side of that risk to someone else. The insurance company accepts your risk, so that you can drive around without being terrified that you'll go bankrupt, lose your house and end up on the street if anything happens.
The insurance company has to decide how much to charge you to accept your risk. If you're a really bad driver, you are giving them more risk, so they need to charge you more to keep from losing money on you. Actually, they will lose money on you if they have to pay a claim, so they charge you and people they think are like you more so that they don't lose money when they average you all out. Remember, they're in this to make money, and if there were no money to be made, nobody would be willing to sell insurance.
On the flip side, if you're a good driver, they want to charge you less. If they charge you as much as the bad driver, you'll get mad. You'll go over to a competitor who is charging a lower rate. So they want to charge you just enough to make sure they make money on you without running you off.
The problem is determining who is a bad driver and who is a good driver. If they ask, 100% of their customers would say they're good drivers. So they have to look for indicators that may not apply directly to you, but do apply to people they identify as being like you.
A big indicator is location. If you live in an area where there are a lot of accidents, chances are higher that you'll be in an accident. So they charge you more, even though you may be the best driver there.
Another is age. Since young people are more likely to get into an accident, just being young is considered riskier. Another is the type of car you drive. Another is the type of driving you do. A guy who travels 40K miles per year is more likely to get into an accident than a guy who travels 10K miles per year. Another is driving history. If you get tickets, that's an indication that you participate in riskier behavior than someone who doesn't. So your rates go up.
But there are also discounts. People who take defensive driving courses are less likely to get into accidents, so they are less risky. Someone who has no tickets may get a "safe driving" discount.
A really screwy one is the multi-car discount. Married people are less likely to get into accidents than single people. But married people are also more likely to have multiple vehicles, so they consider people with multiple vehicles insured with them to be less risky. They're penalizing single people for being more risky, but it's presented as a discount for customer loyalty instead. The discount is something people can understand a lot easier than a risk penalty.
So you have discounts, and you have rate increases, but they're all basically just a way to put a price on your risk (or the risk of people like you).
Now for the unfair part. None of those risk factors guarantee that YOU will be the one to cause an accident. They can't see the future. If they could, they just wouldn't insure the people they knew were going to be at fault. Since they can't see the future, they have to rely on statistics to determine how risky someone like you would be. Then they charge you accordingly.
So back to your question: Why would rates go up after an accident even if it wasn't your fault?
To answer that, let's back up for a minute and consider an extreme case. What if I told you I got into ten accidents this year, but I wasn't at fault in any of them. What if I even had the police reports to prove it was always the other guy's fault. Would you really believe that I didn't contribute at all to those accidents?
If someone told me he had been in two or three accidents, I'd think he just lived in Louisiana or a similar place with a ****load of bad drivers. But if he told me he had been in ten accidents, I would start to suspect that he was only technically not at fault, but he was driving in a risky way that was contributing to accidents anyway. I would probably be a little wary of riding with him.
In other words, I would consider him riskier than the guy who hadn't had any accidents.
This goes back to the unfair part about statistics. Someone who has had an accident is more likely to be in another accident, even if it wasn't his fault. Maybe you won't be in another accident, but people like you are statistically more likely to have another crash. The insurance company doesn't have to know why that correlation is there. All they need to know is that the correlation exists. Then they charge you more for your policy, to make sure that they don't lose money across the average of all the people like you.
So while it may not be fair, consider the alternative. Let's say you told the insurance companies they have to charge everyone the same amount and can't discriminate based on risk. There wouldn't be a single unmarried person under the age of 30 in this country who would be able to get insurance. Companies would consider it unprofitable and would leave the business altogether. You would end up with one or two huge underwriters who would make their money by cutting customer service and making it almost impossible to get paid for a claim. But at least if everyone is treated like crap equally, it would be fair.
12-04-2017, 04:07 PM
#52
CF Veteran
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Arizona
Posts: 4,481
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Received 18 Likes
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Year: 97
Model: Cherokee
Engine: 4.0
I skipped this one earlier, because it's uncomfortable and not easy to explain, and I wanted to consider how to respond. All I ask is that you just keep an open mind for a moment before you start attacking the explanation.
It's not fair. Period.
It's also not fair that you get hit in the first place. It's not fair that there are stupid drivers on the road. It's not fair that there are smart drivers who have a lapse in judgment. It's not fair that there are people who drive around without liability coverage.
Let's agree that life isn't fair and set that aside for a moment. Then we can look at why they do something that isn't fair and are still able to sleep at night.
Insurance is based mostly on risk. You have a risk that you will be in an accident. You buy insurance to transfer the financial side of that risk to someone else. The insurance company accepts your risk, so that you can drive around without being terrified that you'll go bankrupt, lose your house and end up on the street if anything happens.
The insurance company has to decide how much to charge you to accept your risk. If you're a really bad driver, you are giving them more risk, so they need to charge you more to keep from losing money on you. Actually, they will lose money on you if they have to pay a claim, so they charge you and people they think are like you more so that they don't lose money when they average you all out. Remember, they're in this to make money, and if there were no money to be made, nobody would be willing to sell insurance.
On the flip side, if you're a good driver, they want to charge you less. If they charge you as much as the bad driver, you'll get mad. You'll go over to a competitor who is charging a lower rate. So they want to charge you just enough to make sure they make money on you without running you off.
The problem is determining who is a bad driver and who is a good driver. If they ask, 100% of their customers would say they're good drivers. So they have to look for indicators that may not apply directly to you, but do apply to people they identify as being like you.
A big indicator is location. If you live in an area where there are a lot of accidents, chances are higher that you'll be in an accident. So they charge you more, even though you may be the best driver there.
Another is age. Since young people are more likely to get into an accident, just being young is considered riskier. Another is the type of car you drive. Another is the type of driving you do. A guy who travels 40K miles per year is more likely to get into an accident than a guy who travels 10K miles per year. Another is driving history. If you get tickets, that's an indication that you participate in riskier behavior than someone who doesn't. So your rates go up.
But there are also discounts. People who take defensive driving courses are less likely to get into accidents, so they are less risky. Someone who has no tickets may get a "safe driving" discount.
A really screwy one is the multi-car discount. Married people are less likely to get into accidents than single people. But married people are also more likely to have multiple vehicles, so they consider people with multiple vehicles insured with them to be less risky. They're penalizing single people for being more risky, but it's presented as a discount for customer loyalty instead. The discount is something people can understand a lot easier than a risk penalty.
So you have discounts, and you have rate increases, but they're all basically just a way to put a price on your risk (or the risk of people like you).
Now for the unfair part. None of those risk factors guarantee that YOU will be the one to cause an accident. They can't see the future. If they could, they just wouldn't insure the people they knew were going to be at fault. Since they can't see the future, they have to rely on statistics to determine how risky someone like you would be. Then they charge you accordingly.
So back to your question: Why would rates go up after an accident even if it wasn't your fault?
To answer that, let's back up for a minute and consider an extreme case. What if I told you I got into ten accidents this year, but I wasn't at fault in any of them. What if I even had the police reports to prove it was always the other guy's fault. Would you really believe that I didn't contribute at all to those accidents?
If someone told me he had been in two or three accidents, I'd think he just lived in Louisiana or a similar place with a ****load of bad drivers. But if he told me he had been in ten accidents, I would start to suspect that he was only technically not at fault, but he was driving in a risky way that was contributing to accidents anyway. I would probably be a little wary of riding with him.
In other words, I would consider him riskier than the guy who hadn't had any accidents.
This goes back to the unfair part about statistics. Someone who has had an accident is more likely to be in another accident, even if it wasn't his fault. Maybe you won't be in another accident, but people like you are statistically more likely to have another crash. The insurance company doesn't have to know why that correlation is there. All they need to know is that the correlation exists. Then they charge you more for your policy, to make sure that they don't lose money across the average of all the people like you.
So while it may not be fair, consider the alternative. Let's say you told the insurance companies they have to charge everyone the same amount and can't discriminate based on risk. There wouldn't be a single unmarried person under the age of 30 in this country who would be able to get insurance. Companies would consider it unprofitable and would leave the business altogether. You would end up with one or two huge underwriters who would make their money by cutting customer service and making it almost impossible to get paid for a claim. But at least if everyone is treated like crap equally, it would be fair.
It's not fair. Period.
It's also not fair that you get hit in the first place. It's not fair that there are stupid drivers on the road. It's not fair that there are smart drivers who have a lapse in judgment. It's not fair that there are people who drive around without liability coverage.
Let's agree that life isn't fair and set that aside for a moment. Then we can look at why they do something that isn't fair and are still able to sleep at night.
Insurance is based mostly on risk. You have a risk that you will be in an accident. You buy insurance to transfer the financial side of that risk to someone else. The insurance company accepts your risk, so that you can drive around without being terrified that you'll go bankrupt, lose your house and end up on the street if anything happens.
The insurance company has to decide how much to charge you to accept your risk. If you're a really bad driver, you are giving them more risk, so they need to charge you more to keep from losing money on you. Actually, they will lose money on you if they have to pay a claim, so they charge you and people they think are like you more so that they don't lose money when they average you all out. Remember, they're in this to make money, and if there were no money to be made, nobody would be willing to sell insurance.
On the flip side, if you're a good driver, they want to charge you less. If they charge you as much as the bad driver, you'll get mad. You'll go over to a competitor who is charging a lower rate. So they want to charge you just enough to make sure they make money on you without running you off.
The problem is determining who is a bad driver and who is a good driver. If they ask, 100% of their customers would say they're good drivers. So they have to look for indicators that may not apply directly to you, but do apply to people they identify as being like you.
A big indicator is location. If you live in an area where there are a lot of accidents, chances are higher that you'll be in an accident. So they charge you more, even though you may be the best driver there.
Another is age. Since young people are more likely to get into an accident, just being young is considered riskier. Another is the type of car you drive. Another is the type of driving you do. A guy who travels 40K miles per year is more likely to get into an accident than a guy who travels 10K miles per year. Another is driving history. If you get tickets, that's an indication that you participate in riskier behavior than someone who doesn't. So your rates go up.
But there are also discounts. People who take defensive driving courses are less likely to get into accidents, so they are less risky. Someone who has no tickets may get a "safe driving" discount.
A really screwy one is the multi-car discount. Married people are less likely to get into accidents than single people. But married people are also more likely to have multiple vehicles, so they consider people with multiple vehicles insured with them to be less risky. They're penalizing single people for being more risky, but it's presented as a discount for customer loyalty instead. The discount is something people can understand a lot easier than a risk penalty.
So you have discounts, and you have rate increases, but they're all basically just a way to put a price on your risk (or the risk of people like you).
Now for the unfair part. None of those risk factors guarantee that YOU will be the one to cause an accident. They can't see the future. If they could, they just wouldn't insure the people they knew were going to be at fault. Since they can't see the future, they have to rely on statistics to determine how risky someone like you would be. Then they charge you accordingly.
So back to your question: Why would rates go up after an accident even if it wasn't your fault?
To answer that, let's back up for a minute and consider an extreme case. What if I told you I got into ten accidents this year, but I wasn't at fault in any of them. What if I even had the police reports to prove it was always the other guy's fault. Would you really believe that I didn't contribute at all to those accidents?
If someone told me he had been in two or three accidents, I'd think he just lived in Louisiana or a similar place with a ****load of bad drivers. But if he told me he had been in ten accidents, I would start to suspect that he was only technically not at fault, but he was driving in a risky way that was contributing to accidents anyway. I would probably be a little wary of riding with him.
In other words, I would consider him riskier than the guy who hadn't had any accidents.
This goes back to the unfair part about statistics. Someone who has had an accident is more likely to be in another accident, even if it wasn't his fault. Maybe you won't be in another accident, but people like you are statistically more likely to have another crash. The insurance company doesn't have to know why that correlation is there. All they need to know is that the correlation exists. Then they charge you more for your policy, to make sure that they don't lose money across the average of all the people like you.
So while it may not be fair, consider the alternative. Let's say you told the insurance companies they have to charge everyone the same amount and can't discriminate based on risk. There wouldn't be a single unmarried person under the age of 30 in this country who would be able to get insurance. Companies would consider it unprofitable and would leave the business altogether. You would end up with one or two huge underwriters who would make their money by cutting customer service and making it almost impossible to get paid for a claim. But at least if everyone is treated like crap equally, it would be fair.
But know what? I got ripped off by a title agency so I can appreciate what you do. But do you defend consumers against the title agency you work for? or just sellers against buyers? Huge difference here... My title agency was screwing me out of half the payments I was making and it destroyed my economic future and asset holdings at the time. They flat broke me...
12-04-2017, 04:18 PM
#53
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Engine: 4.0
And yes, I did read it all...
06-29-2023, 12:30 PM
#54
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Join Date: Dec 2016
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Year: 1998
Model: Grand Cherokee
Engine: I6 - 4.0
The ressssssst of The Story -
I guess I've waited long enough - thanks for reminding me.
My attorney handled getting my neck and back problems resolved and then I bought a new vehicle with my portion of the settlement payout.
PHM
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My attorney handled getting my neck and back problems resolved and then I bought a new vehicle with my portion of the settlement payout.
PHM
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